About a 1.5 years ago I put the final touches to my third arcade build and was super happy with the result. This is the third attempt to create my dream cabinet:
However, on thing that frustrated me was all the micro management to ensure I got the right experience in different games and along with that I started to develop some solutions. After a while I got obsessed and decided to start over and try to "build an enterpise grade" solution. Why? Well I no longer had a job to occupy me so I thought why the heck not.
So, 15 months later I am at the point where I am going to try and put it out... I just wanted to get some of your thoughts of what I created.
What is ArcadeStudio?
ArcadeStudio is intended to bring many of the tools and configuration tasks involved in building a modern arcade cabinet into one coherent system.
The project consists of two main parts:
ArcadeStudio is the visual authoring and configuration application.
ArcadeServer runs on the arcade cabinet, applies the published configuration, monitors the runtime, and controls the connected systems.
The basic idea is that you configure and verify the cabinet in ArcadeStudio and then publish a validated configuration bundle to ArcadeServer. The server detects what is running and applies the correct controller, lighting, overlay, marquee, and automation configuration.
Rather than replacing RetroArch, MAME, Dolphin, or existing frontends, ArcadeStudio is designed to coordinate the systems around them.
What can ArcadeStudio do?
The project now includes, among other things:
Hardware discovery and cabinet hardware inventory.
Visual cabinet layouts and logical control mapping.
Controller profiles for gamepads, arcade controls, spinners, trackballs, lightguns, wheels, pedals, and other devices.
Controller routing and emulator-specific configuration.
Automatic detection and identification of running games and emulators.
Per-game and per-system profiles.
Launch profiles and reusable launch variables.
LED layouts, mappings, effects, and runtime control.
Support for network lighting and integrations such as WLED and OpenRGB.
Marquee configuration and automatic media selection.
An overlay editor and runtime overlays for DirectX 11, DirectX 12, OpenGL, and Vulkan.
Asset and metadata management for screenshots, videos, marquees, and other media.
An automation system for creating rules such as: “When this game starts, activate this controller profile, LED scene, overlay, and marquee.”
Downloadable data packs for hardware definitions, rules, layouts, launch configurations, and future extensions.
A unified publishing system with validation, diagnostics, and rollback if a configuration causes problems.
This is to give you an idea that I went... a bit over the top (hopefully in a good way).
Since I had no job and a lot of time I did this...
Let me know if you "get it" and what I want to "fix" or shoot me down. Either way is fine
Hopefully soon I will be able to properly start beta testing this version so I can finalize the linux server for it.
However, on thing that frustrated me was all the micro management to ensure I got the right experience in different games and along with that I started to develop some solutions. After a while I got obsessed and decided to start over and try to "build an enterpise grade" solution. Why? Well I no longer had a job to occupy me so I thought why the heck not.
So, 15 months later I am at the point where I am going to try and put it out... I just wanted to get some of your thoughts of what I created.
What is ArcadeStudio?
ArcadeStudio is intended to bring many of the tools and configuration tasks involved in building a modern arcade cabinet into one coherent system.
The project consists of two main parts:
ArcadeStudio is the visual authoring and configuration application.
ArcadeServer runs on the arcade cabinet, applies the published configuration, monitors the runtime, and controls the connected systems.
The basic idea is that you configure and verify the cabinet in ArcadeStudio and then publish a validated configuration bundle to ArcadeServer. The server detects what is running and applies the correct controller, lighting, overlay, marquee, and automation configuration.
Rather than replacing RetroArch, MAME, Dolphin, or existing frontends, ArcadeStudio is designed to coordinate the systems around them.
What can ArcadeStudio do?
The project now includes, among other things:
Hardware discovery and cabinet hardware inventory.
Visual cabinet layouts and logical control mapping.
Controller profiles for gamepads, arcade controls, spinners, trackballs, lightguns, wheels, pedals, and other devices.
Controller routing and emulator-specific configuration.
Automatic detection and identification of running games and emulators.
Per-game and per-system profiles.
Launch profiles and reusable launch variables.
LED layouts, mappings, effects, and runtime control.
Support for network lighting and integrations such as WLED and OpenRGB.
Marquee configuration and automatic media selection.
An overlay editor and runtime overlays for DirectX 11, DirectX 12, OpenGL, and Vulkan.
Asset and metadata management for screenshots, videos, marquees, and other media.
An automation system for creating rules such as: “When this game starts, activate this controller profile, LED scene, overlay, and marquee.”
Downloadable data packs for hardware definitions, rules, layouts, launch configurations, and future extensions.
A unified publishing system with validation, diagnostics, and rollback if a configuration causes problems.
This is to give you an idea that I went... a bit over the top (hopefully in a good way).
Since I had no job and a lot of time I did this...
Let me know if you "get it" and what I want to "fix" or shoot me down. Either way is fine
Hopefully soon I will be able to properly start beta testing this version so I can finalize the linux server for it.